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No madness of ambition, avarice, none:
No larger feast than under plane or pine
With neighbours laid along the grass, to
take

Only such cups as left us friendly-warm,
Affirming each his own philosophy-
Nothing to mar the sober majesties
Of settled, sweet, Epicurean life.

But now it seems some unseen monster lays
His vast and filthy hands upon my will,
Wrenching it backward into his; and
spoils

My bliss in being; and it was not great; For save when shutting reasons up in rhythm,

Or Heliconian honey in living words,
To make a truth less harsh, I often grew
Tired of so much within our little life,
Or of so little in our little life-
Poor little life that toddles half an hour
Crown'd with a flower or two, and there

an end

And since the nobler pleasure seems to fade,

Why should I, beastlike as I find myself, Not manlike end myself?-our privilege-What beast has heart to do it? And what

man,

What Roman would be dragg'd in triumph thus?

Not I; not he, who bears one name with

her

Whose death-blow struck the dateless

doom of kings,

When, brooking not the Tarquin in her veins,

She made her blood in sight of Collatine And all his peers, flushing the guiltless air, Spout from the maiden fountain in her

heart.

And from it sprang the Commonwealth, which breaks

As I am breaking now!

'And therefore now

Let her, that is the womb and tomb of all, Great Nature, take, and forcing far apart Those blind beginnings that have made

me man,

Dash them anew together at her will Thro' all her cycles-into man once more, Or beast or bird or fish, or opulent flower: But till this cosmic order everywhere Shatter'd into one earthquake in one day Cracks all to pieces,-and that hour

perhaps

Is not so far when momentary man
Shall seem no more a something to himself,
But he, his hopes and hates, his homes
and fanes,

And even his bones long laid within the

grave,

The very sides of the grave itself shall

pass,

Vanishing, atom and void, atom and void, Into the unseen for ever,-till that hour, My golden work in which I told a truth That stays the rolling Ixionian wheel, And numbs the Fury's ringlet-snake, and

plucks

The mortal soul from out immortal hell, Shall stand: ay, surely: then it fails at

last

And perishes as I must; for O Thou, Passionless bride, divine Tranquillity, Yearn'd after by the wisest of the wise, Who fail to find thee, being as thou art Without one pleasure and without one pain,

Howbeit I know thou surely must be

mine

Or soon or late, yet out of season, thus
I woo thee roughly, for thou carest not
How roughly men may woo thee so they
win-

Thus thus: the soul flies out and dies in

the air.'

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And drew, from butts of water on the slope,

The fountain of the moment, playing now A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball Danced like a wisp and somewhat lower down

A man with knobs and wires and vials fired

A cannon Echo answer'd in her sleep From hollow fields: and here were tele

scopes

For azure views; and there a group of

girls

In circle waited, whom the electric shock Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter :

round the lake

A little clock-work steamer paddling plied And shook the lilies: perch'd about the knolls

A dozen angry models jetted steam :
A petty railway ran a fire-balloon
Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves
And dropt a fairy parachute and past :
And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph
They flash'd a saucy message to and fro
Between the mimic stations; so that sport
Went hand in hand with Science; other-
where

Pure sport a herd of boys with clamour bowl'd

And stump'd the wicket; babies roll'd about

Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids

Arranged a country dance, and flew thro'

light

And shadow, while the twangling violin Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and over

head

The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime Made noise with bees and breeze from

end to end.

Strange was the sight and smacking of

the time;

And long we gazed, but satiated at length Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy

claspt,

Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire,

Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave

The park, the crowd, the house; but all within

The sward was trim as any garden lawn :
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth,
And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends
From neighbour seats: and there was
Ralph himself,

A broken statue propt against the wall,
As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport,
Half child half woman as she was, had
wound

A scarf of orange round the stony helm, And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, That made the old warrior from his ivied nook

Glow like a sunbeam: near his tomb a feast

Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests, And there we join'd them then the maiden Aunt

Took this fair day for text, and from it

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We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read ;
And there we took one tutor as to read :
The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and
square

Were out of season: never man, I think,
So moulder'd in a sinecure as he :
For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet,
And our long walks were stript as bare as
brooms,

We did but talk you over, pledge you all
In wassail; often, like as many girls-
Sick for the hollies and the yews of home-
As many little trifling Lilias-play'd
Charades and riddles as at Christmas here,
And what's my thought and when and
where and how,

And often told a tale from mouth to mouth As here at Christmas.'

She remember'd that : A pleasant game, she thought: she liked

it more

Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. But these--what kind of tales did men tell men,

She wonder'd, by themselves?

A half-disdain Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips : And Walter nodded at me; 'He began,

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